2 Outline

The xorg.conf is a integral part of running XBMC in X via for e.g. xinit in some controllable manner.
While in recent Linux the device drivers have improved considerably and deem xorg.conf unneeded, it still has its niche.

If you ever had problems getting the correct resolution or correct modelines on your HTPC this is an easy guide.
You can also use this guide to tweak 23.976p and 24p modelines for smoother playback..

3 Introduction

This guide should be quite "generic", use this guide on your own risk. if you end up without a picture on your screen restore the backup xorg.conf or rename existing if no backup exists. References[1][2][3]

4 Preparing xorg.conf for tweaking

Backing up any existing xorg.conf is a integral step in assuring your can revert any errors.

1

cp/etc/X11/xorg.conf /etc/X11/xorg.conf.bak

Then generate a new clean xorg.conf to have a base which to build on later,

Note: You probably can use this for other non-NVidia systems, this is something you need to research how-to generate a xorg.conf for ATI or Intel and if you need one to begin with. feel free to update this guide.

The validation lines vary from setup to setup and depend very much on how well your TV handles EDID,

Telling xorg to ignore EDID may result in low resolution being shown in xbmc, if you dont offer correct and valid modelines for xbmc-xandrc to pick from.
In this example we are not disabling EDID data.
We definitely dont want vesa modes or xserver modes

Note: Make sure that the "(II)NVIDIA(0): Mode is valid." line exists on the one you pick.

4

To create a modeline from this is easy. From my example above the first line would be "1920x1080" and then 74.25 and then 1920 2008 and 2052 2200 and so on. you just read the values from top to bottom.

5 Discussion

6 Creating & using EDID.bin

INCOMPLETE:This page or section is incomplete. Please add information or correct uncertain data which is marked with a ?

If your machine has a black screen only when you boot it up before TV or AMP, follow this guide.

On some combinations of equipments (Amp/TV/XBMC) in rarer cases you may find that the order you power on your equipment matters. This is obviously inconvenient but can be easily fixed.

The root cause of this issue is the EDID (Extended display identification data) handshake. Xorg may not correctly handshake with AV equipment after boot. Typically this results in a black screen and a full system shut down and restart to rectify.

In this guide we will show you how to trick Xorg into thinking your AV equipment is connected and powered on at all times. This locks your install to one monitor/AMP (port specific) and should
stop all handshake issues.

This example is for a nVidia GPU, other GPUs will have a similar approach but are not covered here.

There are many excellent guides on the forum already but most require multiple reboots and the use of other Operating Systems such as windows or Ubuntu.

Since we have created a new xorg.conf file in a location the OS knows to use as default, further changes need made to make this permanent. If at a later date you need to undo this work simple rename the config file and reboot to revert to default

If all has went to plan when you reboot everything will just work and the order of powering equipment up will not matter anymore.

Note: If your equipment is coupled to a receiver that has broader HDMI capabilities than your TV, you should edit your xorg.conf so that the section "Screen" looks like this: